Traditional material handling apparatuses and vehicles, which may for instance be trailers for operative connection to trucks or cabs, compactor trucks, have been around for many years to receive, compact, haul and dump paper, feedstock and garbage, among other items. In many applications of material handling systems to documents, or feedstock, it may in a given application be preferred to haul the documents, paper or feedstock to a remote location for shredding or other disposal. During the loading, transportation and other handling of the documents, paper and feedstock, a higher level of security may be desired or required to protect the information embodied in these documents and feedstock.
With traditional compactor trucks, such as garbage trucks, the material or feedstock such as paper is not secure and may easily be blown out or escape, thereby making its contents available to others in the vicinity. With prior material handling vehicles, it is also easily possible for third parties to gain access to the vehicle when it is temporarily unmanned or otherwise available for entry, because there is insufficient security or denial of access to the interior of the vehicle.
To further establish the need for something new, there have been several more recent laws and regulations that impact the security requirements for various types of documents and information (banking and health care records being two examples). It has therefore become more important than ever for companies to be provide more secure hauling and/or compacting of material such as documents and other feedstock requiring security.
There are also multiple types of locations and configurations of locations from which material must be picked up for later delivery, such as from a curbside and from a loading dock. Furthermore many of the areas from which material must be picked up have narrow streets in space limitations on the size and configuration of the material handling vehicle; and some of these limitations make it problematic for side loading material handling vehicles. It is therefore preferred in many such situations to provide a rear loading material handling vehicle capable of loading material containers, and compacting the material received from said containers into an interior storage compartment.
Once the material handling vehicle is ready to have the loaded material removed, it is desirable to provide such removal in an efficient manner so that significant manual labor for instances not required.
For the security reasons it is often times desirable to have such a material handling apparatus or vehicle configured such that the emptying of the material containers is accomplished substantially within the enclosure such as the container, box or trailer.
It is an object of some embodiments of this invention to provide a rear loading material handling and secure vehicle system for receiving material from material containers.
It is also an object of some embodiments of this invention to provide an improved material handling apparatus or vehicle which may load material from material containers from the rear of the vehicle system, and from either a curbside or ground level location and from a loading dock location.
While the invention was motivated in addressing some objectives, it is in no way so limited. The invention is only limited by the accompanying claims as literally worded, without interpretative or other limiting reference to the specification, and in accordance with the doctrine of equivalents.
Other objects, features, and advantages of this invention will appear from the specification, claims, and accompanying drawings which form a part hereof. In carrying out the objects of this invention, it is to be understood that its essential features are susceptible to change in design and structural arrangement, with only one practical and preferred embodiment being illustrated in the accompanying drawings, as required.